Biography for
Dorothy Lamour More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

10 December 1914, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Date of Death

22 September 1996, Los Angeles, California, USA (heart attack)

Birth Name

Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton

Nickname

The beautiful one
The Sarong Girl
Dottie

Height

5' 5" (1.65 m)

Mini Biography

In addition to being Miss New Orleans in 1931, Dorothy Lamour worked as a Chicago elevator operator; band vocalist for her first husband, band leader Herbie Kaye; and radio performer. In 1936 she donned her soon-to-be-famous sarong for her debut at Paramount, The Jungle Princess (1936), and continued to play female Tarzan-Crusoe-Gauguin-girl-with make-up parts through the war years and beyond. The most famous of these was in the popular Bob Hope/Bing Crosby "Road" pictures - a strange combination of adventure, slapstick, ad-libs and Hollywood inside jokes. Of these she said, "I was the happiest and highest-paid straight woman in the business." As she aged, however, the quality of her films dropped. Among her serious films were Johnny Apollo (1940) and A Medal for Benny (1945).

IMDb Mini Biography By: Ed Stephan

Mini Biography

Dorothy Lamour was born with the birth name of Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton on December 10, 1914, in New Orleans, Louisiana. She was a beautiful child who turned heads as a teenager with her long dark hair. However, her dream was to become a professional singer not actress. After she won a beauty contest as Miss New Orleans in 1931, she headed to Chicago to find her work as a singer. For a time, Dorothy worked as an elevator operator in a department store before going on to become a vocalist in the Herbie Kay band. Kay became her first husband in 1935, but the marriage only lasted four years. In addition to the band, Dorothy also sang on a Chicago radio program. Besides Kay, she performed with Rudy Vallee and 'Eddie Duchin (I)'. 1933 found Dorothy in Hollywood where she landed an uncredited bit part as a chorus girl in the musical Footlight Parade (1933). She didn't appear in films again until 1936 when she landed a part as a coed in College Holiday (1936). Later in 1936, Dorothy got the part of Ulah in The Jungle Princess (1936) produced by E. Lloyd Sheldon and filmed at Paramount. This film was a tremendous moneymaker as Dorothy stole the show in her wrap-around sarong. Dorothy became an instant star as the child of nature/female Tarzan, raised with a pet tiger among the tropical natives. Ray Milland starred opposite her as the man from civilization who woos and wins her. The scene where Milland is trying to teach her the word kiss is touching yet humorous. When he kisses her and tells her that is a kiss she runs away.

She went on to play similar parts in the sarong in productions including The Hurricane (1937), Typhoon (1940), Beyond the Blue Horizon (1942) and her final big-screen sarong feature, Donovan's Reef (1963). Although Dorothy actually only wore a sarong in six of her 59 pictures, it defined her career. The sarong stayed with her in the Bob Hope / Bing Crosby "Road" pictures for Paramount. The trio starred in Road to Singapore (1940), Road to Zanzibar (1941), Road to Morocco (1942), Road to Utopia (1946) and Road to Bali (1952). A final "Road" picture, "Road to the Fountain of Youth" was in the works in 1977, until Bing Crosby's sudden death. The final completed "Road" picture, The Road to Hong Kong (1962), had Hope and Crosby in their usual roles, but no Dorothy this time - Joan Collins had the female lead in it.

Dorothy was a great actress with roles in Disputed Passage (1939), Dixie (1943) and On Our Merry Way (1948)_ . She could show great range in both comic and dramatic roles. After making three films in 1949, her career began to trail off. She only made ten films between 1951 and 1987. That last one was Creepshow 2 (1987) where she played a housewife who gets murdered, a long way from the "Road" pictures and movies such as Johnny Apollo (1940) and A Medal for Benny (1945).

Dorothy died at 81 of an undisclosed ailment on September 22, 1996 in Los Angeles, California.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Denny Jackson

Spouse

William Ross Howard III	(7 April 1943 - 15 February 1978) (his death) 2 children
Herbie Kaye	(10 May 1935 - 21 April 1939) (divorced)

Trade Mark

Wearing a floral print wrap-around sarong.

Trivia

Femme fatale in the Bing Crosby - Bob Hope "Road" series of Paramount Pictures offerings from 1941 to 1953. In the final entry, The Road to Hong Kong (1962), she appeared with Crosby and Hope but the femme fatale this time was Joan Collins.

Miss New Orleans 1931.

Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA, in the Enduring Faith section, lot 387, space 2.

Derived her acting name name "Dorothy Lamour" from her step-father, whose surname was "Lambour".

Host of NBC Radio's "Sealtest Variety Theater" (aka The Dorothy Lamour Show) (1948-1949).

"The Moon of Manakoora" from 1937's The Hurricane (1937), was her signature song.

During World War II, she toured the country, selling in excess of $300 million worth of war bonds.

In 1946 (with the full assistance of Paramount's publicity department) she staged a memorable stunt by publicly burning a sarong, the garment with which she had been associated since her first starring role.

Went to secretarial school where she became an excellent typist. Even as a star, she typed her own letters.

Her step-son gave her a dog, CoCo, when her husband died. She didn't want it at first, but he insisted. She soon learned to love the dog and referred to him as her boyfriend.

Her step-son William Ross "Bill, Jr." Howard IV was born in 1933. Her son John Ridgely "Ridge" Howard was born January 8, 1946. Her son Richard Thomson "Tommy" Howard was born on October 20, 1949.

She has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Her motion picture star is located at 6332 Hollywood Blvd. and her radio star is located at 6240 Hollywood Blvd.

Biography in: "American National Biography." Supplement 1, pp. 338-339. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Although not of Hispanic descent, she was wrongly described as such in the documentary, Hispanic Hollywood. Interestingly, this documentary failed to mention her French Louisiana roots and her birth name. Both sides of her family were American for several generations before she was born. She did not speak Spanish nor did she have an ancestors of Hispanic descent.

In Italy, almost all her films were dubbed by Rosetta Calavetta.

Personal Quotes

"I made 60 motion pictures and only wore the sarong in about six pictures, but it did become a kind of trademark."

About working with Hope & Crosby: "I felt like a wonderful sandwich, a slice of white bread between two slices of ham."

"I was the happiest and highest-paid straight woman in the business."

[on Bing Crosby] As I look back, I think he was a very shy, insecure man. The world looked upon him as one of the great talents, he just never saw himself in that light.

Salary

The Fleet's In (1942)	$5,000/week
Aloma of the South Seas (1941)	$5,000/week
Caught in the Draft (1941)	$5,000/week
Road to Zanzibar (1941)	$5,000/week
St. Louis Blues (1939)	$1,500/week
Spawn of the North (1938)	$1,500/week
Tropic Holiday (1938)	$1,000/week

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